The 30 Best Mary J. Blige Quotes

Mary J. Blige is a music icon.

Known as the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul, Blige has won nine Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy, and many more accolades, including even a Billboard Icon Award. She’s been nominated for Golden Globes and Academy Awards.

Blige, who performed at the Super Bowl halftime show last year with other icons like Dr. Dre and Eminem, began her career in 1988 and has since earned praise for her singing, her power, and her remarkable attitude.

Not only that,t but Blige is a successful actor with roles in movies like Rock of Ages and Mudbound, which earned her an Oscar nomination. She’s also an icon of fashion, wearing eye-catching looks on fabulous stages.

Here, we wanted to dive into the things Blige has said and put forth into the world outside of her songs and movie roles. What does Blige have to say about life and love, her craft, and the world at large?

Without further ado here are the 30 Best Mary J. Blige quotes.

1. “So many people are like, ‘I’m perfect.’ I’m so imperfect; that’s why I’m able to let everything out and let people see everything. ‘Cause I’m just a mess like every other person that’s a mess out there.”

2. “I still get nervous about singing. I drink tea with honey and lemon before every concert. And I need to have scented candles in all of my hotel rooms.”

3. “I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle’s not over yet.”

4. “So as long as I’m a human being and I’m not perfect, I’m able to say I’m having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, ‘Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?’ Yes, I’m going to make a mistake. Yes, I’m still gonna do things.”

5. “Growing up, I was the preferred hairstylist for all of my friends.”

6. “I think women should band together to get us more respect in all the businesses that we’re in because, you know, if we turn 40, we’re nothing and nobody. We all should band together and just say we’re not gonna go down like that.”

7. “If I’m going to be the best in what I do, I have to study what I’m doing, I have to see what I’m doing. I have to see it, I have to hear it. I’m just starting to appreciate myself – not starting, but appreciating myself in a way where I can look at myself back in a movie or listen to myself as much as I do now.”

8. “As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me—Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, and Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.”

9. “I can see the music. I know what it looks like. I know what color it is. The words come easy, the tears come easy, and the joy comes easy. The music tells you what to do.”

10. “It hurts when you have to smile and you don’t want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.”

11. “I felt ashamed about everything. Me dropping out of high school, me not, you know, just not being beautiful enough. I just didn’t feel like I was smart enough or beautiful enough, you know, for years.”

12. “Music is where my love is. I don’t think the acting thing is going to start outweighing that, but I think it’s going to start being a good chunk of something I want to do.”

13. “I didn’t know how to show myself love, and I didn’t want anyone else to hurt me. So my tough girl attitude was like, ‘I’m not having it.’”

14. “I’m on my way to a place where I’d never dreamed I’d be, and that’s perfection.”

15. “The music business is not a good place for people who don’t know things.”

16. “I wish I had an extra day with my mom sometimes. Or another hour in the day with my family, husband, and children.”

17. “In the inner city, there’s a mentality that the government owes you something. My breakthrough came when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and took responsibility for every part of my life. No more pity parties. I’ve gotta love me more than anybody else loves me.”

18. “No one intimidates me because I’m not trying to do what you do, because I can’t do what you do. I can only do what Mary J. Blige can do, so that relaxes me right there, and it gets me out of the competition and that whole thing.”

19. “I suffered from self-hatred so much. It’s like I didn’t want to look like that anymore. I didn’t feel like that anymore. It had to be another way.”

20. “I started speaking about what I was dealing with through my music, and 4 million women responded and said, ‘Us too, Mary.’ And I didn’t know that everyone was hurting like I was hurting. I had no idea.”

21. “I know who I am. I am not perfect. I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world. But I’m one of them.”

22. “I don’t know. Only God knows where the story ends for me, but I know where the story begins. It’s up to us to choose, whether we win or lose and I choose to win.”

23. “Believe in yourself when nobody else does.”

24. “Without your health, everything else means nothing.”

25. “I wish I had known that education is the key. That knowledge is power. Now I pick up books and watch educational shows with my husband. I’m seeing how knowledge can elevate you.”

26. “I believe there should be no more drama, but it’s everywhere you go. It’s just about how you get out. You’ve gotta bob and weave because it’s everywhere. How do I keep the drama low? It’s about using your head.”

27. “Nowadays, with the state of the music business, for any artist, whether you’re up-and-coming or you’ve been in it for a while, you have to explore different revenues and different ways of expressing yourself.”

28. “Once you climb to another level, you have to figure out how to sustain it.”

29. “When you hold on to anger and unforgiveness, you can’t move forward.”

30. “I care about me now. When I didn’t care about me, I was, like, ‘Why is this going wrong? Why is my life so bad?’ But when you don’t care about yourself, nobody else is going to care about you. So I learned to love myself, even if nobody else does.”

Photo by Timothy Norris/FilmMagic